Beth K. Vogt's Blog, page 80

In Others’ Words: Childhood

In Your Words: Was Walt Disney right? Do too many people grow up? Have you retained any of your childhood — your childlikeness — despite the passing of years?   How do you grow up and still stay young?

How do you grow up and still stay young? Click to Tweet

Growing Up: Was Walt Disney Right? Click to Tweet

Catch a Falling Star FB Party: Still Smiling

Yes, I am still smiling about my “Catch a Falling Star” FB party — and it happened two days ago!

The best part of the party for me? Talking with everyone who joined the celebration. Yes, “talking” meant typing … and refreshing the Facebook page multiple times … and scrolling up and down (and repeat, repeat, repeat) — but it was so, so worth it!

Caitlin with Litfuse Publicity Group manned the helm, which meant she and I were in constant contact via speaker phone. She’d say, “I’m going to load the next round of trivia questions. Can you see them?” And lo and behold, there the trivia questions would be! (How many children do I have?)

My youngest daughter set beside me and watched the whole process and other family members viewed the fun from various laptops in the family room outside my office. Their comments were hysterical. Next time they want a live Facebook party — with their participation too, of course!

Thank you, thank you to everyone who came by and partied with me, celebrating the release of Catch a Falling Star. And thanks to those of you who emailed or IMed or texted and said you wish you were there (hhhhmmm … sounds like a book title, doesn’t it?). 

Here is the list of winners from the celebration:

Congratulations to Sue Wendt! You’ve won a copy of Catch a Falling Star! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Haas Morris! You’ve won a gift certificate to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, or iTunes! Email your email address and choice to caitlin {at} litfusegroup.com!

Congratulations to Marie Wells Coutu! You’ve won a copy of Catch a Falling Star! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congratulations to Jeanne Takenaka! You’ve won a copy of Catch a Falling Star! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congratulations to Aimee Haywood! You’ve won a gift certificate to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, or iTunes! Email your email address and choice to caitlin {at} litfusegroup.com!

Congratulations to Bethany Baldwin! You’ve won a copy of Catch a Falling Star! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congratulations to Pepper Basham! You’ve won a catch a falling star necklace! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congratulations to Stephanie Craig! You’ve won a copy of Catch a Falling Star! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congratulations to Gabrielle Meyer! You’ve won a gift certificate to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, or iTunes! Email your email address and choice to caitlin {at} litfusegroup.com!

Congratulations to Tari Thompson Faris! You’ve won a copy of Catch a Falling Star! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congratulations to Georgia Hatheway Beckman! You’ve won a copy of Catch a Falling Star for posting your photo on Beth’s Facebook wall! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congratulations to Bernadette DesChamps! You’ve won a gift certificate to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, or iTunes! Email your email address and choice to caitlin {at} litfusegroup.com!

Congratulations to Daphne Woodall! You’ve won ! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congratulations to Mary Vee! You’ve won a copy of Catch a Falling Star for posting your photo on Beth’s Facebook wall! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

TRIVIA WINNER:

Congratulations to Amy Baker! You’ve won a limited edition signed print by artist Cindy Thornton, “Catch a Falling Star”! Email your mailing address to moc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

$200 VISA CASH CARD WINNER:

Congratulations to Laura Pol from Cameron, North Carolina! You’ve won a $200 Visa cash card and a copy of Catch a Falling Star and Wish You were Here! Email your mailing address tomoc.puorgesuftil@niltiac.

Congrats to all the winners—please email your mailing address to caitlin {at} litfusegroup {dot} com. 

 

When Life Doesn’t Go According To Plan: Guest Post by Debut Author Carla Laureano

My novel, Catch a Falling Star, asks the question: Is life about accomplishing plans … or wishes coming true … or something more?

Today’s post is the ninth in the “When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan” Wednesday blog series, 11 guest posts by authors and writers, including Deborah Raney, Rachel Hauck, and  Susan May Warren, who explore the question: What do you do when life doesn’t go according to plan? Today’s post is by debut author Carla Laureano.

 

 

 

 

Writing may be a lifelong love, but it certainly wasn’t my first. When I was a little girl, my deepest desire to was to be …

A ballerina.

I realize that most girls go through the ballerina phase at some point, but I wasn’t one of those. My All-In-All-the-Time personality developed early. I didn’t just want to twirl around in tutus. I wanted to be a principal dancer with a major New York City ballet company by the age of twenty-two. I gave up Girl Scouts and track and field and every other leisure pursuit that was incompatible with ballet training.

I took every class available at my local studio. At the age of twelve, my mom started driving me the two hours to Los Angeles to train with a legendary ballet mistress, formerly of the Royal Ballet of London. At thirteen, I attended my first summer intensive at Ballet Aspen. At fourteen, my brave parents let me travel further afield for six weeks at the Milwaukee Ballet School.

And then disaster happened. Shortly after returning from Milwaukee, during rehearsals for The Nutcracker, I slipped on a slick patch of floor. I went down with a sickening crunch. My left ankle immediately swelled to the size of a softball. A trip to the doctor the next day confirmed my worst fears: ligaments torn away from the bone. It could be fixed with surgery involving a steel pin, and I could be back to dancing in six weeks. Or I could stay off it and let it heal on its own over the next several months.

Maybe it was burn-out. Or maybe it was God’s quiet nudging that He wanted me to move in a different direction. I chose the second option.

In the months that followed, first gimping around on crutches (which wasn’t all bad—the cute boy on which I had a crush carried my backpack for two weeks!) and then regaining strength, I rediscovered my love of writing. And at the age of sixteen, wrote my first novel.

It was that novel, terrible as it was, that helped earn me a scholarship to college. It was the realization writing was my true love that propelled me to study English. And it may have taken twenty years to get here–via a husband, two kids, a 1200-mile move, and more than one full-time career–but that tiny slick patch of floor is ultimately responsible for the fact I’m living my dream of being a published novelist.

Do I regret that plans didn’t work out the way I’d hoped? Occasionally. I still take ballet classes for fun and for exercise. I go to the ballet whenever I can afford tickets, and I count down every year to “So You Think You Can Dance” on TV. But most of all, I’m grateful for what I learned from ten years of training for a career I never achieved.

Anything worth doing is worth doing wholeheartedly. Dream big. And trust the One whose plans are much clearer and more comprehensive than our own.

What lessons have you learned from the detours in your own life?

What have you learned from the detours in your life? Click to Tweet 

Are you dreaming BIG and having faith in God understands all things? Click to Tweet 

Rafflecopter Giveaway for When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan Goodie Basket Click to Tweet

Carla Laureano has held many job titles—professional marketer, small business consultant, and martial arts instructor—but writer is by far her favorite. She currently lives in Denver with her patient husband and two rambunctious sons, who know only that Mom’s work involves lots of coffee and talking to imaginary people. Carla’s debut contemporary romance, Five Days in Skye, releases from David C Cook on June 10th.

Celebrate: Catch a Falling Star Facebook Party Tonight!

Tonight’s the “Catch a Falling Star” Facebook Party!

I appreciate all the bloggers who have reviewed Catch a Falling Star since it released May 7 — thank you!

Thanks, too, if you’ve read Catch a Falling Star (CAFS) and posted a review online at Amazon/Barnes and Noble/CBD.com. As my friend author Edie Melson says, “Reviews are gold for an author!” If you enjoyed CAFS and haven’t posted a review yet, I’d love for you to take the time to do so.

I look forward to chatting with everyone tonight — and giving away some prizes, including the $200 Visa card. I also found some star-themed gifts and added them to the giveaway, including:

“Catch a Falling Star,” a limited edition print by artist Cindy Thornton. My family knew Cindy’s family when we lived in Florida — imagine my delight when I discovered that this very talented artist had a print whose theme fell in line with my second novel!

 

While I was at the MBT Deep Thinkers Retreat in Destin, FL last February, I ducked into the Swarovski store and found a Shooting Comet ornament, complete with a small star.

Anybody else like to browse Etsy? I love this Catch a Falling Star necklace — and it was the first prize I purchased for the giveaway, long before my final edits were done on the novel.

See y’all tonight!

In Others’ Words: Friction

I’ll be honest: I want the polishing without the friction. The perfection without the adversity.

I can read the passage about counting trials as “all joy” and nod my  head, thinking, “Of course I will. I’m your girl, God. Bring it on.”

And then God goes about polishing and perfecting me.  He reveals my sin, scraping it off so that I stumble over a heap of filthy rags at my feet.

He allows trouble.  Distress that goes far beyond disappointment all the way to heart-rending pain that brings me to my knees. I know I am allowed to come before His throne of mercy … but I’m not certain I have the strength to crawl there.

Somehow, someway, I have to remember that the friction … the adversity … is God’s process to polish and perfect me. He sees great worth in me when I see nothing more than a plain old ordinary rock.

“I have engraved you on the palms of my hands …” Isaiah 49:16 NIV

In Your Words: How has God polished and perfected you?

Is there perfection through adversity? Click to Tweet

How is God like a master jeweler? Click to Tweet  

My “Catch a Falling Star” Facebook Party is tomorrow night! Come join the fun!

Enter Today – 5/14 – 6/4!

I’m celebrating the release of Catch a Falling Star with a Facebook Party on June 4 & a giveaway! I hope you join me and enter the contest!

In Others’ Words: Seeing

Faith convinces us of things unseen. (Hebrews 11:1)

Sometimes I have more faith in the unseen “oh no’s” — the experiences I dread, the what-ifs that figuratively take me out at the knees.

I open my eyes wide … peer into the darkness … and see more darkness looming ahead of me. My faith, my hope, is shrouded in fear and doubt — two wearisome travel companions along life’s road.

I’ve learned it’s best to admit I’ve lost my way in the darkness. To close my eyes — all the way. No peeking. And while I’m at it, I stop listening to all the voices that tell me I might as well give up and stay lost because, hey, no one’s coming looking for me. No one’s even noticed I’m missing.

Once I’m no longer trying to find my way out of the dark, I see the light I’ve been looking for all along. The glimmer of a forgotten truth. Or I hear the whisper of affirmation, of love, directing me toward hope. Toward freedom. Toward the place I always want to be: the “wide open spaces of His grace.” (Romans 5:1-2 The Message)

In Your Words: When you’re lost in the dark, what helps you find your way again? 

How do you find your way out of darkness? Click to Tweet 

Enter Today – 5/14 – 6/4!

I’m celebrating the release of Catch a Falling Star with a Facebook Party on June 4 & a giveaway! I hope you join me and enter the contest!

When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan: Guest Post by Writer & Cartoonist Dave Hamlin

My novel, Catch a Falling Star, asks the question: Is life about accomplishing plans … or wishes coming true … or something more?

Today’s post is the eighth in the “When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan” Wednesday blog series, 11 guest posts by authors and writers, including Deborah Raney, Rachel Hauck, and  Susan May Warren, who explore the question: What do you do when life doesn’t go according to plan? Today’s post is by my friend and brother-in-the Lord, Dave Hamlin.

Up In Flames by Dave Hamlin

Planning has never been my strength.

I’ve spent most of my life drifting, only changing course when pressed with the recurring question, “Now what?”

I’ve always wanted to serve God, but finding His particular will for me seemed like an unsolvable puzzle. Not knowing where God was leading specifically, I followed Him generally through college, marriage, a few kids, and a few jobs.

A decade ago, I began attending seminary while serving as a minister-in-training at a church in the Midwest. Then a crisis arose in the form of a leadership conflict, and the sparks ignited a powder keg. There was an explosion. And my life caught fire.

The place that my wife and I had called home for 20 years was suddenly engulfed in flames. We sold our house, packed up our seven kids, and drove our van out of town over burning bridges.

“Now what?”

I discerned that God was moving us from the Midwest to Colorado Springs. But that’s all I knew.

So, I worked hard at making new plans. I labored at finding, not just the next thing, but the right thing, the thing that I was supposed to do with my life.

But the wildfire kept burning—unemployment, underemployment, business failure, loss after loss, year after year.

Yet through all the pain and loss, the Spirit was quietly doing a work of internal transformation in my heart. I was changing. God also formed wonderful new relationships that I might encounter Him in healthy spiritual community. In January of 2012, God visited me in a powerful healing encounter; for the first time in my life I knew my Heavenly Father loved me.

Life was new and different now. But circumstances were the same.

One morning, as I was driving a borrowed car from a rented house to a low-wage job, I thought about the wildfire. I was grieved that it was still burning. I thought to myself, ”Every dream and every vague hope we brought with us to Colorado has gone up in flames.”

At that moment–as if in response to my private thoughts–the flickering flames in my imagination became a vision of a blazing wall of fire. My mourning was overwhelmed by a glowing warmth in my spirit. Somehow I understood the vision to be the fire of God’s holy, jealous love for me. It was as if God was saying to me, “I burned it all. In my holy love, I have consumed all of your dreams, all of your hopes, and all of your plans, so that I might give You my dream and fulfill My plans for you.”

Months later, on the first of January, God spoke to me through a passage in Isaiah. He declared that He is doing a new thing in my life. “Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?”

“Watch what I will do.”

So, I’m watching. Smoke continues to rise from the wildfire, but I’m watching, and waiting, for God’s new thing to unfold.

In Your Words: How do you respond when your plans and dreams go up in smoke? What offers you hope in the waiting?  

 Finding God when when plans fail … again and again and again. Click to Tweet

When life is different … but circumstances are the same. Click to Tweet

Rafflecopter Giveaway for When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan Goodie Basket Click to Tweet

Dave Hamlin lives in Colorado Springs with his wife, Shari, and their eight children. Dave’s second language is cartoon, and he speaks it fluently on his blog Drawing From Experience. Dave is waiting on God to write the words to the rest of his bio (sometimes patiently, sometimes not).

In Others’ Words: Never Forget

Memorial Day is personal … to my friends whose husbands died while they were on active duty in the United States military. To my friend whose son was killed while leading a patrol in Afghanistan.

Perhaps it is personal to you too, or to someone you know. Memorial Day brings to mind a name … a face … a loved one who will always be missed.

Yes, they are heroes and heroines.

But to you, to me, they are family. Friends.

Never forgotten.

In Others’ Words: Rest

I turned in my manuscript for my third novel one week ago.

I finished teaching at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference yesterday.

Today I exhale.

Today, I rest, really rest, for the first time in months.

I know what rest equals rest to me — and it starts with looking at the calendar and the word “deadline” isn’t looming over my mornings, noons, and nights.

Don’t get me wrong. I like writing. I like deadlines.

But I also like rest.

I need rest.

And I’m ready to rest.

In Your Words: Is this a working or resting season of your life? How do you rest? 

 

How do you find time to rest? Click to Tweet

Is this a season of work or a season of rest in your life? Click to Tweet

Enter Today – 5/14 – 6/4!



I’m celebrating the release of Catch a Falling Star with a Facebook Party on June 4 & a giveaway! I hope you join me and enter the contest!

When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan: Guest Post by Author Rachel Hauck

My novel, Catch a Falling Star, asks the question: Is life about accomplishing plans … or wishes coming true … or something more?

Today’s post is the seventh in the “When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan” Wednesday blog series, 11 guest posts by authors and writers, including Deborah Raney, Rachel Hauck, and  Susan May Warren,  who explore the question: What do you do when life doesn’t go according to plan? Today’s post is by my friend & mentor, award-winning author Rachel Hauck.

 

 

 

I’m a big sister. The second oldest of five kids with an older brother, two younger and a baby sister.

At the age of eight, I’d mastered changing cloth, double diapers held together with stick pins!

At ten, I went to my first babysitting job. It was the family next door, but still …

I loved children. They loved me.

When my husband and I married at 31, we had been friends and dating for four years so we were ready to start a family.

I wasn’t sure we’d have a honeymoon baby, but sometime within the first year, we’d be expecting.

But the year passed childless. Then the second and third.

And you know what? I was okay with it. My husband and I are good friends and enjoy just being together so a few married years on our own seemed fine.

As our fourth year of marriage approached, I was driving home from work one day, praying for someone called to the celibate lifestyle, and the Lord tapped my heart, “Is it okay with you if you don’t have children?”

“Huh? Really?”

Was that even God? Should I tell the devil to step off?

Goodness, the Lord commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. The Psalms praises a man with a full quiver. Proverbs extols the wise woman and her children rise up to call her blessed.

Why would God ask me such a thing? Maybe He didn’t. Perhaps it was my own imaginings. Wouldn’t be the first time I “missed God.”

If I was right every time, I’d have been a world famous, best-selling author by then. Ha!

But the question, and a sense of the divine, settled in my heart and took root.

My husband was as open to this request as I and we spent time over the years praying, seeking, making sure we had a “Yes” in our hearts to Him.

Time passed. I never became pregnant.

Little confirmations that indeed we may not have children happened along the way. I pondered them, like Mary, in my heart.

I had peace with this request, though I didn’t always understand it.

And if God wanted to change His mind … we were certainly fine with that too.

Then a few years ago I was reading in 1 Samuel and this verse came alive to me:

1 Samuel 1:8

“Then Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”

Hannah mourned her barrenness. Her rival wife taunted her. Yet each year, Elkanah gave her a double portion because he loved her. Her barrenness was not an issue with him.

But in her own grief, Hannah could not enjoy and receive his love.

“Am I not better to you than ten sons?” her husband asked.

I can almost hear the yearning and pain in his voice. He hurts for her, yet she cannot be satisfied with his gifts and blessings.

Am I not that way with the Lord at times? Something doesn’t go the way I want in life, but the Lord blesses me and showers me with love.

Yet I’m so focused on what I don’t have, I can’t receive Him.

As a childless couple, I wonder, “Who will take care of us when we are old?”

And the Lord’s answer to me is, “Am I not better to you than ten sons?”

Oh, how my heart comes alive when I realize my portion in the Lord. He is indeed better to me than ten sons!

When things don’t go my way – at home or church, with friends, or in the publishing world – I must open my eyes to see what He is doing, how He is blessing and keeping me.

He is better to me than ten sons!

Rejoice! JOY!

How have you been able to see the blessing — His blessings — of life not going according to your plans? 

What is the blessing of life not going according to plan? Click to Tweet 

Author Rachel Hauck shares how God’s “no” increased her faith. Click to Tweet

Rafflecopter Giveaway for When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan Goodie Basket Click to Tweet

 

Rachel Hauck is an award-winning, best selling author of critically acclaimed novels such as RITA nominated Love Starts with Elle, part of the Lowcountry series. She also penned the acclaimed Songbird Novels with multi-platinum recording artist, Sara Evans. Their novel Softly and Tenderly, was one of Booklists 2011 Top Ten Inspirationals.

Her book, the bestselling, The Wedding Dress won the Romantic Times Inspirational Novel of the Year and is nominated for the Romance Writers of America RITA award.

Her latest release, Once Upon A Prince, earned a Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist.

Rachel serves on the Executive Board for American Christian Fiction Writers and leads worship at their annual conference. She is a mentor and book therapist at My Book Therapy, and conference speaker.